Nick Stahl von Holstein, or Nicolas de Stael

[LCR]

Here is another artist of my most-most-most (those who saw my albums, could this guess).
He entered the world of art, like the dazzling meteor, and painting after de Stael could no longer be what it was before him. Perhaps my life without his pictures would also be somewhat different.

I think he had all the qualities, except for one - moderation. To create what he has created over ten years, another would have required no less than half a century.
I spread his brief biography, play his works - most importantly, the translation of a letter he had three months before his death he sent his gallerist, and a few photographs of him, because he was extraordinarily handsome.

• 1914 - Born in 1914 in St. Petersburg in the family of Baron Vladimir Stahl von Holstein, the chamberlain, the general of the Russian army, the last commandant of the fortress. His father came from Ostsee kind. When Nicholas was born his father was over sixty, mother, nee Berednikovoy - over forty.
  
• 1919 - after the revolution, the family emigrated to Poland
  
• 1922 - parents de Stael had died. Eight of Nicholas and his two sisters took over the education Visero family, who lived in Brussels.
  
• 1924-1932 - Studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Saint-Gilles-de-Brussels, then at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts.
  
• 1934 - a trip to the south of France, has eclipsed Paris, where he discovered Cezanne, Matisse, Braque, Soutine.
  
• 1936 - first exhibition in Gedera Dietrich in Brussels. Trip to Morocco.
  
• 1937 - in Marrakech familiarity with Jeannine Giyu, who became his girlfriend.
  
• 1939 - In September, enlisted in the Foreign Legion.
  
• 1940 - Demobilization. Steel was in the "free zone". Meetings with Delaunay, Arp, Manelli, Jean Klein, Le Corbusier. Images coal.
  
• 1942 - Getting serious work. Inclined to abstractions.
  
• 1943 - Steel and his wife, Jeannine moved to Paris. Jeanne Buchez been enthusiastic about his painting.
  
• 1944 - Joan Buchez organized in his gallery in Montparnasse exhibition of Kandinsky, Domela and steel. After the Liberation collectors have become interested in his work. Getting Started with George and Marcel marriages.
  
• 1945 - Personal exhibition at the Joan Buchez.
  
• 1946 - The wife Steel Jeannine died in February. Started with the gallery of Louis Karre. In December, his marriage to Françoise Shaputon.
  
• 1947 - began to settle in a large workshop in the 14 district of Paris. Friendship with Braque, who introduced him to an American art dealer Theodore Shempffom. Shempff is started painting steel and gradually opened the doors of the American market.
  
• 1948 - The famous gallery owner Jacques Dyubur offers began to work with him. His paintings hang next to Corot, Delacroix, Gericault. Getting French citizenship. The exhibition in Montevideo (Uruguay).
  
• 1949 - A trip to the Netherlands, where he studied Frans Halsya and Rembrendta.
  
• 1950 - State Museum of Modern Art bought and put a lot of work in 1949, Jacques Dyubur opened his gallery on Boulevard Haussmann several contemporary artists, and in particular, have become.
  
• 1951 - Exhibition in New York at Shempffa. Friendship with the poet Rene ball and joint book "Poems Rene Shara - woodcuts, Nicolas de Stael." Exhibition of graphics by Dyubura. Introducing fSyuzannoy Tezna, which held the salon, where Sioran, Boulez, Messiaen, Michaud, Chingria were regulars.
  
• 1952 - Steel began writing landscapes from life in the suburbs of Paris. At the May Salon, he exhibited his great work "Stadium Park DE Prens. Project exhibition in New York at Knedlera. Hard work.
• Project Ballet Rene ball, then with Pierre Lekyuirom not implemented.
  
• 1953 - a trip to Italy with his wife and Pierre Lekyuirom, Trip to New York for the hanging of his works have Knedlera. All the time in New York held in the museums of Manhattan and Philadelphia, and in private collections. Shocked Barnes collection, especially the "Grands kpalschitsami" Cezanne. Return to Paris. Paul Rosenberg offered him a lucrative contract, and Steel signed it. This contract marked the end of material difficulties. Travel to Italy and Sicily. Upon his return to Paris he settled in Deer one. Joan Mathieu became his "model". Buying a home in the Mediterranean Sea, in Menerbe. Getting Started with Douglas Cooper, the British collector and historian, who lived in the south in the department of Gard. His collection includes works by Leger, Gris, Picasso, Braque.
  
• 1954 - Exhibition in New York in Rosenberg was a great success. Exhibition in Paridzhe have Dyubura. Autumn, he settled in Antibes. Intensive work.
  
• 1955 - Steel preparing a new exhibition at Dyubura, scheduled for June. He is an incredible lot of work. Was present in Paris for two concerts, performing music Schoenberg and Webern. I started writing under her influence now "Concert".
• Committed suicide by jumping from the terrace of his house in Antibes 16 March.

[LCR]

Painting - a duel with a canvas, it requires a monstrous physical impact. Art became known as Expressionism, so its abstraction - a term which he denied - full of passion, anxiety, anger ...

In painting steel usually identify 3 periods:

Artist dramatiyaeskogo realism, he tries to open the elementary and fundamental nature pumila: 1942 - 1950

Unlike his compatriot Andrei Lansky, Nicolas de Stael has since 1942 moved away from figurative painting. Composition of gray handicap - one of his first abstract works. Already in these works manifest personality Steel - a muted palette of gray and black tones, busy tones of rare white and red, which chromatic foreshadow his mature works and shows his amazing talent colorist.

During the second period of his abstract compositions have reached the limit of development: 1951 - 1952

He returned to figurative painting - landscapes, portraits, still lifes, painted in bright colors. Technology has changed him, dense and dark texture of his early works was less pasty, palette became more intense. Simplified forms, and color contrasts intensified, reaching paroxysm.

In 1952, dated some of his best canvases - "Roof", "football", "Bottles in the studio, Big Orange nude", "Where do not turn - Cezanne and Bonnard right here ...

Steel wrote a palette knife, the forms are sweeping. Now almost all his work he describes in one word "Composition".

Living in Antibes: 1954 - 1955

Steel refuses spatula in favor of brushes. The texture is light and fluid. It feels more natural light (earlier he often worked under floodlights). In 1954, he wrote more than 300 works (the union catalog contains little more than a thousand pieces).

[LCR]

Letter from Nicolas de Stael to Jacques Dyuburu
Antibes, the end of December 1954

Dear Jacques

Thank you for your letter. Perhaps what I write to you, it will be difficult to read, but in a different way does not work.
Most importantly, what I am trying to achieve, it is continuously updated from one job to another, without caesura, and it is very difficult. I know that my painting, apart from the outside in it, from the noise and fury, the constant playing with force, is very fragile, is fragile in the best sense of the word. She is fragile, like love. I think that trying to - to the extent where I can control myself - to work more or less complete because of my ability, and when I sketch on canvas large format, when the work finally becomes good, I always ubiystenno see that It is the most random, it's like vertigo - a fluke, which is expressed in the work force, but remains in the accident, as though the virtuosity vice versa, and from that I fall into a state of complete hopelessness. I can not comprehend all the work, and this chance to finally penetrate even in the three-meter work, I have been working slowly and deliberately, putting a few strokes in a day.

I can not control the process in the full sense of the word - if it makes sense - I would like to learn how to work quite deliberately, and even if I work fast, stay calm until the end.

I arrived in Antibes, to try to change in this direction. If you can help me, I return to Paris is not until June, and we put the best of my canvases you. I know that people can not endure such loneliness. I do not know how to get uui him, but I know that it could seriously advance me in my work. Actually, I do not know whether the word "push", but it does not matter, it is important that I should try, the game worth the candle. If I endure this loneliness for a few years, believe me, mopi work will be quite different, and you, Jacques, will be the most enviable place in the world, because you will be selling paintings, each of which will be an event beyond the control of all known laws of each of which will be completely truthful.
The fact that I am changing from one painting to another, from one period to another, for me, normally, as if already overtaken by the work somewhere in the mist, as soon as they are completed.
But it may be that all this - just a dream idiot? Regardless, I will keep myself in the unknown tomorrow until his death.
Sign the picture for me, it does not matter. Those that I sent you, I signed on wet, incised signature nail.

Happy holidays to you, Jacques.
I will wait your letter.

Nicolas

[Glasha]

Nana, special thank you for your letter.

Aspire to artists, and many have not touched what he called "a fluke "...,
- He tried to get rid of this, to control themselves ... Amazing!

From the letter it seems that this was his fatal mistake.

[Сергеич]

The letter was written in 54, would live one year.

I will keep myself in the unknown tomorrow until his death

  From it part is understandable why he was in the dawn of recognition thrown out the window.

Sign the picture for me, it does not matter

Apparently on the verge of man.

[LCR]

Originally Posted by Sergeyitch

The letter was written in 54, would live one year.

Letter was written in late December 1954, remained 4 months to live.

As for his proposal to sign for it work, I think it should not be taken as a sign of impending tragedy.
Many artists can not stand to sign their work (one of them I knew very, very good), and gallery owners always stick with the requirement to sign - sovershnno reasonable.

[dedulya37]

Originally Posted by LCR

Many artists can not stand to sign their work (one of them I knew very, very good), and gallery owners always stick with the requirement to sign - sovershnno reasonable.

Absolutely agree with you, Liana.
Western people do not understand why a painting or a sketch is not signed, they can not understand that an artist, as well as an actor, not yet played "its primary role, and he always wants to correct something in a painting or finish in the general He considers it unfinished, and therefore not signed. Signed as a rule, be put before the direct sale.
But studies ... because they will in future be used, why should they sign?
So in the end they remain unsigned.
But I did manage to convince one of the artist to sign all their works. Ivan Sorokin later admitted that I was right. Another artist - Viktor Ivanovich Ivanov (surovostilets) flatly refused, citing the fact that in his youth received a scolding from Gerasimova signed for work that appeared last unfinished.
With age, the artists look at their own work through different eyes. They see the positive points that are no longer able to repeat, and disadvantages that ultimately prevented them from signing the work after some time.

Worse, when the gallery owners themselves sign of an artist, especially for the deceased. That they only hurt their reputation or confuse collectors. I have a few such examples. Work authentic and forged signatures.

[Sandro]

Originally Posted by dedulya37

Worse, when the gallery owners themselves sign of an artist, especially for the deceased. That they only hurt their reputation or confuse collectors. I have a few such examples. Work authentic and forged signatures.

I, as an artist-fan, also do not like to sign the work, such as the lack of inspiration
And, as a gallery owner, I do not like unsigned works. They Pts. difficult - in any examination will not take, nor the client is not fully explain that this is normal, etc. And in this, do not confess, signing himself, his handwriting on the back of the canvas (learned that from the Westerners), certainly when there is 100%provenance.
Our art of Pts. do not like shouting "who so treats a work of art ... that for kaschunstvo !...". Especially when they see the work he had bought in the western gallery-collections, there is behind the entire canvas written over numbers, initials, surname of the artist in various languages, for many, even my initials attributed, in order to know who bought the thing ...

[Meister]

Originally Posted by LCR

In painting steel usually identify 3 periods

certainly the most interesting things were created by him in 1951-1954. and then could not stand the soul of the poet's fame and all the goods ...

PSObozhayu his bottles)) Thank you Liana for such a huge GROUNDS)

[dedulya37]

Originally Posted by Sandro

there behind the entire canvas written over numbers, initials, surname of the artist in various languages, on many even my initials attributed, in order to know who bought the thing

I'm talking about the front side of the picture, and not about the downside.